


Loose Ends

by Mertiya



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Brain being a jerk, Depression, Friendship, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, Labwork, Lack of inspiration, Ravnica, Short One Shot, musings, very slightly shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ral waits for Jace to come home.  Not that that's what he thinks he's doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Ends

The lab was quiet, save for the humming whisper of electricity.  With a tired sigh, Ral Zarek reached for a manaline and prepared to connect it to the power cell of his latest device, then paused.  The connection didn’t fit–was it the wrong kind of manaline?

He bent over and investigated more closely.  No, the overall shape was right; it was just that the conduit to the power cell was bent.  Either it had overheated or he’d bashed it with something moving it around the lab–it would have to be straightened out before it was usable.

Lightning crackled along his back, leaping to his gauntlet, but it flickered out as suddenly as it had appeared, and Ral threw down the manaline with an exclamation of disgust.  It was no use.  His brain wasn’t going to do the work.

He’d had a lot of bad days lately, days where his mind felt coated in grey sludge and he could barely drag himself out of bed, much less make progress on his experiments.  Maybe it was that the city was quiet, the kind of oppressive, lowering quiet that arrived before a storm broke out, shattering the haunting stillness with angry, lashing wind and rain and lightning.  Maybe it was just a bad time.  He’d had bad times before, as a child, as an adult, weeks lost to grey fatigue and stymied questions.

Maybe it was because Jace was gone.

Morosely, Ral kicked at a spanner on the floor, but missed and only succeeded in stubbing his toe on the ground.  It wasn’t as if he spent time with the Guildpact–it was hardly an easy thing to arrange an audience, after all, and what would he say?  ‘ _You’re the only one who understands what it’s like’?_  It was fucking laughable.  But he knew Jace was off-plane, had been for weeks now.  His secretary–the Azorius woman, whatever her name was–was beginning to look more and more harried (not that Ral was watching her, not that he paused outside of the Senate whenever he had a chance, just glancing in, just to see if maybe, _maybe_  he’d catch a hint of swirling blue).  Where was he?

The ache that grew in his chest made no sense.  He’d been fine before he’d met Jace.  He’d known other planeswalkers, before, a few–all of them kind of pricks.  But he’d never worked that closely with someone before, had he?  Someone who understood all the little discrepancies that made life as a planeswalker so achingly, frustratingly lonely.  He’d never understood someone as well as he had in those few, snatched, secret moments.   _I’m Ravnican to the core, too_.

Well, if he was Ravnican to the core, where was he?  He was the Living Guildpact, the arbiter of law between the guilds, the incarnation of Azor’s millennia-old will.  And he was missing.

Ral stared out the window, feeling a solitary spark crawl across the back of his hand.  Whether the Guildpact had vanished because of carelessness or because there was something really wrong, he was the only person on Ravnica who stood any chance, no matter how remote, of finding Jace Beleren.

_Ugh,_  Ral thought.   _Tanit, I hate planeswalking_.

If he wasn’t feeling better by tomorrow, he promised himself, his next stop was the Blind Eternities.  Surprisingly, the thought was almost encouraging.  He turned back to the broken manaline to find the grey clouds lifting, just a little bit. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just to round off Oath of the Gatewatch, since Wizards conveniently forgot to mention any of Jace's actual responsibilities to Ravnica in their wrap-up.


End file.
